The Borough Treasurer
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Joseph Smith Fletcher >> The Borough Treasurer
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The girl had become very quiet, looking steadily from one man to the
other. Once more her eyes settled on Bent.
"Do you know why Kitely was killed?" she asked suddenly. "Have you seen
any reason for it?"
"He had been robbed, after his death," answered Bent. "That seems
absolutely certain."
"Whatever you may say, you've got some suspicion about my father," she
remarked after a pause. "Well--all I can say is, my father has no need
to rob anybody--far from it, if you want the truth. But what do you
want?" she continued, a little impatiently. "My father isn't in, and I
don't know where he is--often he is out all night."
"If we could just look round his shed, now?" said the sergeant. "Just to
see if aught's missing, like, you know. You see, miss----"
"You can look round the shed--and round anywhere else," said Avice.
"Though what good that will do--well, you know where the shed is."
She turned away and began taking off her hat and coat, and the four men
went out into the garden and turned to the lean-to shed at the end of
the cottage. A tiled verandah ran along the front of cottage and shed,
and the door of the shed was at its further end. But as the sergeant was
about to open it, the policeman of the observant nature made his third
discovery. He had been flashing the light of his bull's-eye lamp over
his surroundings, and he now turned it on a coil of rope which hung from
a nail in the boarded wall of the shed, between the door and the window.
"There you are, gentlemen!" he said, lifting the lamp in one hand and
pointing triumphantly to a definite point of the coiled cord with the
index finger of the other. "There! Cut clean, too--just like the bit up
yonder!"
Brereton pressed forward and looked narrowly at what the man was
indicating. There was no doubt that a length of cord had been freshly
cut off the coil, and cut, too, with an unusually sharp, keen-bladed
knife; the edges of the severance were clean and distinct, the separated
strands were fresh and unsoiled. It was obvious that a piece of that
cord had been cut from the rest within a very short time, and the
sergeant shook his head gravely as he took the coil down from its nail.
"I don't think there's any need to look round much further, Mr. Bent,"
he said. "Of course, I shall take this away with me, and compare it with
the shorter piece. But we'll just peep into this shed, so as to make
his daughter believe that was what we wanted: I don't want to frighten
her more than we have done. Naught there, you see," he went on, opening
the shed door and revealing a whitewashed interior furnished with
fittings and articles of its owner's trade. "Well, we'll away--with what
we've got."
He went back to the door of the cottage and putting his head inside
called gently to its occupant.
"Well?" demanded Avice.
"All right, miss--we're going," said the sergeant. "But if your father
comes in, just ask him to step down to the police-station, d'you see?--I
should like to have a word or two with him."
The girl made no answer to this gentle request, and when the sergeant
had joined the others, she shut the door of the cottage, and Brereton
heard it locked and bolted.
"That's about the strangest thing of all!" he said as he and Bent left
the policemen and turned down a by-lane which led towards the town. "I
haven't a doubt that the piece of cord with which Kitely was strangled
was cut off that coil! Now what does it mean? Of course, to me it's the
very surest proof that this man Harborough had nothing to do with the
murder."
"Why?" asked Bent.
"Why? My dear fellow!" exclaimed Brereton. "Do you really think that any
man who was in possession of his senses would do such a thing? Take a
piece of cord from a coil--leave the coil where anybody could find
it--strangle a man with the severed piece and leave it round the
victim's neck? Absurd! No--a thousand times no!"
"Well--and what then?" asked Bent.
"Ah! Somebody cut that piece off--for the use it was put to," answered
Brereton. "But--who?"
Bent made no reply for a while. Then, as they reached the outskirts of
the town, he clapped a hand on his companion's arm.
"You're forgetting something--in spite of your legal mind," he said.
"The murderer may have been interrupted before he could remove it. And
in that case----"
He stopped suddenly as a gate opened in the wall of a garden which they
were just passing, and a tall man emerged. In the light of the adjacent
lamp Bent recognized Mallalieu. Mallalieu, too, recognized him, and
stopped.
"Oh, that you, Mr. Mayor!" exclaimed Bent. "I was just wondering whether
to drop in on you as I passed. Have you heard what's happened tonight?"
"Heard naught," replied Mallalieu. "I've just been having a hand at
whist with Councillor Northrop and his wife and daughter. What has
happened, then?"
They were all three walking towards the town by that time, and Bent
slipped between Brereton and Mallalieu and took the Mayor's arm.
"Murder's happened," he said. "That's the plain truth of it. You know
old Kitely--your partner's tenant? Well, somebody's killed him."
The effect of this announcement on Mallalieu was extraordinary. Bent
felt the arm into which he had just slipped his own literally quiver
with a spasmodic response to the astonished brain; the pipe which
Mallalieu was smoking fell from his lips; out of his lips came something
very like a cry of dismay.
"God bless me!" he exclaimed. "You don't say so?"
"It's a fact," said Bent. He stopped and picked up the fallen pipe.
"Sorry I let it out so clumsily--I didn't think it would affect you like
that. But there it is--Kitely's been murdered. Strangled!"
"Strangled!" echoed Mallalieu. "Dear--dear--dear! When was this, now?"
"Within the hour," replied Bent. "Mr. Brereton here--a friend of mine
from London--and I were spending the evening at your partner's, when
that neighbour of his, Garthwaite, came running in to tell Mr.
Cotherstone that Kitely was lying dead on the Shawl. Of course we all
went up."
"Then--you've seen him?" demanded Mallalieu. "There's no doubt about
it?"
"Doubt!" exclaimed Bent. "I should think there is no doubt! As
determined a murder as ever I heard of. No--there's no doubt."
Mallalieu paused--at the gate of his own house.
"Come in, gentlemen," he said. "Come in just a minute, anyway. I--egad
it's struck me all of a heap, has that news! Murder?--there hasn't been
such a thing in these parts ever since I came here, near thirty years
ago. Come in and tell me a bit more about it."
He led the way up a gravelled drive, admitted himself and his visitors
to the house with a latchkey, and turned into a parlour where a fire
burned and a small supper-tray was set out on a table beneath a lamp.
"All my folks'll have gone to bed," he said. "They go and leave me a
bite of something, you see--I'm often out late. Will you gentlemen have
a sandwich--or a dry biscuit? Well, you'll have a drink, then. And so,"
he went on, as he produced glasses from the sideboard, "and so you were
spending the evening with Cotherstone, what?"
"Well, I can't say that we exactly spent all the evening with him,"
answered Bent, "because he had to go out for a good part of it, on
business. But we were with him--we were at his house--when the news
came."
"Aye, he had to go out, had he?" asked Mallalieu, as if from mere
curiosity. "What time would that be, like? I knew he'd business
tonight--business of ours."
"Nine to ten, roughly speaking," replied Bent. "He'd just got in when
Garthwaite came with the news."
"It 'ud shock him, of course," suggested Mallalieu. "His own tenant!"
"Yes--it was a shock," agreed Bent. He took the glass which his host
handed to him and sat down. "We'd better tell you all about it," he
said. "It's a queer affair--Mr. Brereton here, who's a barrister, thinks
it's a very queer affair."
Mallalieu nodded and sat down, too, glass in hand. He listened
attentively--and Brereton watched him while he listened. A sleek, sly,
observant, watchful man, this, said Brereton to himself--the sort that
would take all in and give little out. And he waited expectantly to hear
what Mallalieu would say when he had heard everything.
Mallalieu turned to him when Bent had finished.
"I agree with you, sir," he said. "Nobody but a fool would have cut that
piece of cord off, left it round the man's neck, and left the coil
hanging where anybody could find it. And that man Harborough's no fool!
This isn't his job, Bent. No!"
"Whose, then?" asked Bent.
Mallalieu suddenly drank off the contents of his glass and rose.
"As I'm chief magistrate, I'd better go down to see the police," he
said. "There's been a queer character or two hanging about the town of
late. I'd better stir 'em up. You won't come down, I suppose?" he
continued when they left the house together.
"No--we can do no good," answered Bent.
His own house was just across the road from Mallalieu's, and he and
Brereton said goodnight and turned towards it as the Mayor strode
quickly off in the direction of the police-station.
CHAPTER VII
NIGHT WORK
From the little colony of new houses at the foot of the Shawl to the
police station at the end of the High Street was only a few minutes'
walk. Mallalieu was a quick walker, and he covered this distance at his
top speed. But during those few minutes he came to a conclusion, for he
was as quick of thought as in the use of his feet.
Of course, Cotherstone had killed Kitely. That was certain. He had begun
to suspect that as soon as he heard of the murder; he became convinced
of it as soon as young Bent mentioned that Cotherstone had left his
guests for an hour after supper. Without a doubt Cotherstone had lost
his head and done this foolish thing! And now Cotherstone must be
protected, safe-guarded; heaven and earth must be moved lest suspicion
should fall on him. For nothing could be done to Cotherstone without
effect upon himself--and of himself--and of himself Mallalieu meant to
take very good care. Never mind what innocent person suffered,
Cotherstone must go free.
And the first thing to do was to assume direction of the police, to pull
strings, to engineer matters. No matter how much he believed in
Harborough's innocence, Harborough was the man to go for--at present.
Attention must be concentrated on him, and on him only.
Anything--anything, at whatever cost of morals and honesty to divert
suspicion from that fool of a Cotherstone!--if it were not already too
late. It was the desire to make sure that it was not too late, the
desire to be beforehand, that made Mallalieu hasten to the police. He
knew his own power, he had a supreme confidence in his ability to manage
things, and he was determined to give up the night to the scheme already
seething in his fertile brain rather than that justice should enter upon
what he would consider a wrong course.
While he sat silently and intently listening to Bent's story of the
crime, Mallalieu, who could think and listen and give full attention to
both mental processes without letting either suffer at the expense of
the other, had reconstructed the murder. He knew Cotherstone--nobody
knew him half as well. Cotherstone was what Mallalieu called deep--he
was ingenious, resourceful, inventive. Cotherstone, in the early hours
of the evening, had doubtless thought the whole thing out. He would be
well acquainted with his prospective victim's habits. He would know
exactly when and where to waylay Kitely. The filching of the piece of
cord from the wall of Harborough's shed was a clever thing--infernally
clever, thought Mallalieu, who had a designing man's whole-hearted
admiration for any sort of cleverness in his own particular line. It
would be an easy thing to do--and what a splendidly important thing! Of
course Cotherstone knew all about Harborough's arrangements--he would
often pass the pig-killer's house--from the hedge of the garden he would
have seen the coils of greased rope hanging from their nails under the
verandah roof, aye, a thousand times. Nothing easier than to slip into
Harborough's garden from the adjacent wood, cut off a length of the
cord, use it--and leave it as a first bit of evidence against a man
whose public record was uncertain. Oh, very clever indeed!--if only
Cotherstone could carry things off, and not allow his conscience to
write marks on his face. And he must help--and innocent as he felt
Harborough to be, he must set things going against Harborough--his life
was as naught, against the Mallalieu-Cotherstone safety.
Mallalieu walked into the police-station, to find the sergeant just
returned and in consultation with the superintendent, whom he had
summoned to hear his report. Both turned inquiringly on the Mayor.
"I've heard all about it," said Mallalieu, bustling forward. "Mr. Bent
told me. Now then, where's that cord they talk about?"
The sergeant pointed to the coil and the severed piece, which lay on a
large sheet of brown paper on a side-table, preparatory to being sealed
up. Mallalieu crossed over and made a short examination of these
exhibits; then he turned to the superintendent with an air of decision.
"Aught been done?" he demanded.
"Not yet, Mr. Mayor," answered the superintendent. "We were just
consulting as to what's best to be done."
"I should think that's obvious," replied Mallalieu. "You must get to
work! Two things you want to do just now. Ring up Norcaster for one
thing, and High Gill Junction for another. Give 'em a description of
Harborough--he'll probably have made for one place or another, to get
away by train. And ask 'em at Norcaster to lend you a few plain-clothes
men, and to send 'em along here at once by motor--there's no train till
morning. Then, get all your own men out--now!--and keep folk off the
paths in that wood, and put a watch on Harborough's house, in case he
should put a bold face on it and come back--he's impudence enough--and
of course, if he comes, they'll take him. Get to all that now--at once!"
"You think it's Harborough, then?" said the superintendent.
"I think there's what the law folks call a prymer facy case against
him," replied Mallalieu. "It's your duty to get him, anyway, and if he
can clear himself, why, let him. Get busy with that telephone, and be
particular about help from Norcaster--we're under-staffed here as it
is."
The superintendent hurried out of his office and Mallalieu turned to the
sergeant.
"I understood from Mr. Bent," he said, "that that housekeeper of
Kitely's said the old fellow had been to the bank at noon today, to draw
some money? That so?"
"So she said, your Worship," answered the sergeant. "Some allowance, or
something of that sort, that he drew once a quarter. She didn't know how
much."
"But she thought he'd have it on him when he was attacked?" asked
Mallalieu.
"She said he was a man for carrying his money on him always," replied
the sergeant. "We understood from her it was his habit. She says he
always had a good bit on him--as a rule. And of course, if he'd drawn
more today, why, he might have a fair lot."
"We'll soon find that out," remarked Mallalieu. "I'll step round to the
bank manager and rouse him. Now you get your men together--this is no
time for sleeping. You ought to have men up at the Shawl now."
"I've left one man at Kitely's cottage, sir, and another about
Harborough's--in case Harborough should come back during the night,"
said the sergeant. "We've two more constables close by the station. I'll
get them up."
"Do it just now," commanded Mallalieu. "I'll be back in a while."
He hurried out again and went rapidly down the High Street to the
old-fashioned building near the Town Hall in which the one bank of the
little town did its business, and in which the bank manager lived. There
was not a soul about in the street, and the ringing of the bell at the
bank-house door, and the loud knock which Mallalieu gave in supplement
to it, seemed to wake innumerable echoes. And proof as he believed
himself to be against such slight things, the sudden opening of a window
above his head made him jump.
The startled bank-manager, hurrying down to his midnight visitor in his
dressing-gown and slippers, stood aghast when he had taken the Mayor
within and learned his errand.
"Certainly!" he said. "Kitely was in the bank today, about noon--I
attended to him myself. That's the second time he's been here since he
came to the town. He called here a day or two after he first took that
house from Mr. Cotherstone--to cash a draft for his quarter's pension.
He told me then who he was. Do you know?"
"Not in the least," replied Mallalieu, telling the lie all the more
readily because he had been fully prepared for the question to which it
was an answer. "I knew naught about him."
"He was an ex-detective," said the bank-manager. "Pensioned off, of
course: a nice pension. He told me he'd had--I believe it was getting on
to forty years' service in the police force. Dear, dear, this is a sad
business--and I'm afraid I can tell you a bit more about it."
"What?" demanded Mallalieu, showing surprise in spite of himself.
"You mentioned Harborough," said the bank-manager, shaking his head.
"Well?" said Mallalieu. "What then?"
"Harborough was at the counter when Kitely took his money," answered the
bank-manager. "He had called in to change a five-pound note."
The two men looked at each other in silence for a time. Then the
bank-manager shook his head again.
"You wouldn't think that a man who has a five-pound note of his own to
change would be likely, to murder another man for what he could get," he
went on. "But Kitely had a nice bit of money to carry away, and he wore
a very valuable gold watch and chain, which he was rather fond of
showing in the town, and----eh?"
"It's a suspicious business," said Mallalieu. "You say Harborough saw
Kitely take his money?"
"Couldn't fail," replied the bank-manager. "He was standing by him. The
old man put it--notes and gold--in a pocket that he had inside his
waistcoat."
Mallalieu lingered, as if in thought, rubbing his chin and staring at
the carpet. "Well, that's a sort of additional clue," he remarked at
last. "It looks very black against Harborough."
"We've the numbers of the notes that I handed to Kitely," observed the
bank-manager. "They may be useful if there's any attempt to change any
note, you know."
Mallalieu shook his head.
"Aye, just so," he answered. "But I should say there won't be--just yet.
It's a queer business, isn't it--but, as I say, there's evidence against
this fellow, and we must try to get him."
He went out then and crossed the street to the doctor's house--while he
was about it, he wanted to know all he could. And with the doctor he
stopped much longer than he had stopped at the bank, and when he left
him he was puzzled. For the doctor said to him what he had said to
Cotherstone and to Bent and to the rest of the group in the wood--that
whoever had strangled Kitely had had experience in that sort of grim
work before--or else he was a sailorman who had expert knowledge of
tying knots. Now Mallalieu was by that time more certain than ever that
Cotherstone was the murderer, and he felt sure that Cotherstone had no
experience of that sort of thing.
"Done with a single twist and a turn!" he muttered to himself as he
walked back to the police-station. "Aye--aye!--that seems to show
knowledge. But it's not my business to follow that up just now--I know
what my business is--nobody better."
The superintendent and the sergeant were giving orders to two
sleepy-eyed policemen when Mallalieu rejoined them. He waited until the
policemen had gone away to patrol the Shawl and then took the
superintendent aside.
"I've heard a bit more incriminatory news against Harborough," he said.
"He was in the bank this morning--or yesterday morning, as it now
is--when Kitely drew his money. There may be naught in that--and there
may be a lot. Anyway, he knew the old man had a goodish bit on him."
The superintendent nodded, but his manner was doubtful.
"Well, of course, that's evidence--considering things," he said, "but
you know as well as I do, Mr. Mayor, that Harborough's not a man that's
ever been in want of money. It's the belief of a good many folks in the
town that he has money of his own: he's always been a bit of a mystery
ever since I can remember. He could afford to give that daughter of his
a good education--good as a young lady gets--and he spends plenty, and I
never heard of him owing aught. Of course, he's a queer lot--we know
he's a poacher and all that, but he's so skilful about it that we've
never been able to catch him. I can't think he's the guilty party--and
yet----"
"You can't get away from the facts," said Mallalieu. "He'll have to be
sought for. If he's made himself scarce--if he doesn't come home----"
"Ah, that 'ud certainly be against him!" agreed the superintendent.
"Well, I'm doing all I can. We've got our own men out, and there's three
officers coming over from Norcaster by motor--they're on the way now."
"Send for me if aught turns up," said Mallalieu.
He walked slowly home, his brain still busy with possibilities and
eventualities. And within five minutes of his waking at his usual hour
of six it was again busy--and curious. For he and Cotherstone, both keen
business men who believed in constant supervision of their workmen, were
accustomed to meet at the yard at half-past six every morning, summer or
winter, and he was wondering what his partner would say and do--and look
like.
Cotherstone was in the yard when Mallalieu reached it. He was giving
some orders to a carter, and he finished what he was doing before coming
up to Mallalieu. In the half light of the morning he looked pretty much
as usual--but Mallalieu noticed a certain worn look under his eyes and
suppressed nervousness in his voice. He himself remained silent and
observant, and he let Cotherstone speak first.
"Well?" said Cotherstone, coming close to him as they stood in a vacant
space outside the office. "Well?"
"Well?" responded Mallalieu.
Cotherstone began to fidget with some account books and papers that he
had brought from his house. He eyed his partner with furtive glances;
Mallalieu eyed him with steady and watchful ones.
"I suppose you've heard all about it?" said Cotherstone, after an
awkward silence.
"Aye!" replied Mallalieu, drily. "Aye, I've heard."
Cotherstone looked round. There was no one near him, but he dropped his
voice to a whisper.
"So long as nobody but him knew," he muttered, giving Mallalieu another
side glance, "so long as he hadn't said aught to anybody--and I don't
think he had--we're--safe."
Mallalieu was still staring quietly at Cotherstone. And Cotherstone
began to grow restless under that steady, questioning look.
"Oh?" observed Mallalieu, at last. "Aye? You think so? Ah!"
"Good God--don't you!" exclaimed Cotherstone, roused to a sudden anger.
"Why----"
But just then a policeman came out of the High Street into the yard,
caught sight of the two partners, and came over to them, touching his
helmet.
"Can your Worship step across the way?" he asked. "They've brought
Harborough down, and the Super wants a word with you."
CHAPTER VIII
RETAINED FOR THE DEFENCE
Instead of replying to the policeman by word or movement, Mallalieu
glanced at Cotherstone. There was a curious suggestion in that glance
which Cotherstone did not like. He was already angry; Mallalieu's
inquiring look made him still angrier.
"Like to come?" asked Mallalieu, laconically.
"No!" answered Cotherstone, turning towards the office. "It's naught to
me."
He disappeared within doors, and Mallalieu walked out of the yard into
the High Street--to run against Bent and Brereton, who were hurrying in
the direction of the police-station, in company with another constable.
"Ah!" said Mallalieu as they met. "So you've heard, too, I suppose?
Heard that Harborough's been taken, I mean. Now, how was he taken?" he
went on, turning to the policeman who had summoned him. "And when, and
where?--let's be knowing about it."
"He wasn't taken, your Worship," replied the man. "Leastways, not in
what you'd call the proper way. He came back to his house half an hour
or so ago--when it was just getting nicely light--and two of our men
that were there told him what was going on, and he appeared to come
straight down with them. He says he knows naught, your Worship."
"That's what you'd expect," remarked Mallalieu, drily. "He'd be a fool
if he said aught else."
He put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, and, followed by the
others, strolled into the police-station as if he were dropping in on
business of trifling importance. And there was nothing to be seen there
which betokened that a drama of life and death was being constructed in
that formal-looking place of neutral-coloured walls, precise furniture,
and atmosphere of repression. Three or four men stood near the
superintendent's desk; a policeman was writing slowly and laboriously on
a big sheet of blue paper at a side-table, a woman was coaxing a
sluggish fire to burn.
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